IOI Community Run

Thanks to Jamie for helping with the registration despite his busy schedule. Most of us join this run partly because of the enticing Travel package lucky draw.

Picked up my brother, Kenny and sped on the LDP towards Puchong. Come to think of it, driving to races is a good excuse to speed since traffic is low. If ever the police were to stop me, I would innocently display my bib and say that I was rushing- perfect alibi. Midway, Mee Peng complained of stomachache (PM1 ailment?) and we had to make an emergency pit stop near the Motorola Bridge Mobil station.

7:20a.m, 10 minutes to go, I floored the Renault towards Bandar Puteri. Luckily, the place was not jammed up and I easily found parking next to a coffee shop. We jogged to the starting line, a good warm-up.

Prior to this run, I postulated Mee Peng could achieve a sub-40 timing judging from her 7km Putrajaya and Rat Race pace. She does not like me telling her what she can attain. I got chided for being analytical and raising the expectation.

My fastest 5.3km was 33 minutes back in 2004 achieved in the wee hours: 3:20 a.m! I last race 5.6km in the JP Morgan Run 2004 clocking 37mins. 5km distance is for the fast and furious.

All 3 of us were doing the 5.5km route. I wore the light Mizuno Precision 5. I thought the route would be rather flat but it turned out to be otherwise. The first 2/3rds were uphill.

There was this slim Indian man probably in his late 50s which I have in numerous other races trailed or ended almost the same timing. I finished just ahead of him by merely a few steps in the NB 15km run but in Putrajaya half he was ahead by a hundred meters. Today we are racing a short 5kms. Never underestimate a senior veteran runner. The old man was flying. I had no answer to his tenacious pace.

I kept up with a fellow runner C107 and later C019 with the intention of overtaking them in the final last hundred meters but today is not my day.
Both finished strongly and very much ahead. I wish to thank them for pushing me to the limits as I crossed the finishing line with a personal best of 29:55 mins.
The Pacemaker gang: Ronnie, Justin, Dinesh, Rachel, Jamie and the rest gathered for a traditional group photo. While I was talking to them, I kept an eye on Kenny and Mee Peng's finishing.

Kenny finished 35:05. Mee Peng astonishingly clocked 35:50 in 22nd position. I did not expect her to run below 7min/km pace. Her Timex stopwatch hung again! I foresee this already and had the contingency plan of leaving my Nike stopwatch running on “Lap” mode to clock both of them.

Wave Technology - Rider 8 and Precision 5

The 10 lucky draw prizes was an anti-climax. The MC announced at least 6-7 names for the Grand Prize but nobody went up the stage to claim the prize. Majority of the runners have left the venue.


True colours won the day.

I am appalled with the MC for addressing the crowd and stage events mostly in Mandarin. This is a public event where there are non-Chinese listeners/runners. The race is called “Community” but it is not spoken in that context.
I hope the organizers would embrace the Bangsa Malaysia spirit next year by using English or Bahasa as the core medium of communication.

Mum turns 70 today. Mum is apprehensive of all her birthdays especially when it involves a cake since dad passed away 7 years ago. The reason? My dad died of stroke the following day after we celebrated his 70th birthday. From her smile, it appears she had expunged her superstitious belief. She loved the delicious fruit flan cake. It was a smile I have not captured for a long time.

Happy Birthday Mum!

Bizarre Incident

I bought 8 vouchers from one of the Penang hotels located at Batu Ferringi in the recent Matta Fair. My wife’s uncle said he cannot drive long distance and requested I drive his Naza Citra to Penang. Though the Korean engine was a tad rough but the overall ride was good. I suspect the manufacturer origin of this car, KIA sought European engineers to tune its suspension. I had the same feel when I test drove the new 1.4L KIA Rio, a highly under-rated car. The Koreans are coming!

After spending more than a hundred ringgit eating the overpriced char kway teow, chee cheong fun, asam laksa, hokkien mee (prawn mee), oysters and mee jawa at Lorong Selamat, we finally checked into the hotel.

On the 2nd night, sister-in-law (S-I-L) wanted to check out the pasar malam activities towards the end of Tg. Bungah road. I left all of them to wander the pasar malam while I went to an open building area that sold thousands of DVDs. Called Mee Peng on the handphone to inform her of the availability of Korean movie series.

Later she came with her 18-year-old cousin. Not long I received a rather frantic call from my S-I-L asking me where was my wife. I calmly replied she is with me. Not suspecting anything amiss, I continued with my browsing. Within minutes, all of them came to the big DVD shop including my S-I-L’s husband. The moment I saw him, I showed him the 4-in-1 “Faces of Death” dvd (the cover pictured skulls) and asked if he had seen this documentary before.

After we had made our purchase and about to leave, my wife turned to me and asked a strange question “Do you know what happened?”. I replied “Hugh???”.

The story unfolds:

Apparently, earlier S-I-L’s husband received a call from a man’s voice purportedly called from my wife’s handphone claiming that both she and the cousin were accosted and held in captivity!(?). S-I-L’s husband sounded the alarm to the uncle whose daughter was with my wife, and the rest of the family members. They were in deep shock and ran to the dvd shop after hearing I was there.
Fortunately, when they found nothing of that sort happened everybody was puzzled whose voice did he hear on the handphone?

I withheld information…

Prior to this Penang trip, I spoke to one my most trusted friends about the hotel vouchers. My friend wanted to tell me something about the hotel but his wife stopped him from continuing since I have already finalized the hotel bookings. I suspected it had to do with something supernatural. My friend reassured me and said, “You just go and have a good trip”. I did not want to relay this to my wife then.

Once I was back in KL, I called my friend again to ascertain what was the mystery that he was withholding from me. He told me the Hotel that we stayed was once an area occupied by the Japanese Army to conduct executions. It was rumored the “Swimming Pool” is haunted.

My S-I-L’s husband was the only adult amongst the 9 of us who went into the Swimming Pool the evening before the incident.

Chilling revelation or pure coincident?

Blessing in disguise

My cancelled 2-week mandatory leave brought me luck. A vendor sponsored an RM3K+ ITIL Fundamentals professional certification 3-day course of which I would not have been able to attend had I gone to Bangkok. I took the exam and passed. I last took an official paper qualification test 19 years ago!

Airasia has graciously credited back the unused flight tickets to a special account that must be utilized within 3 months. This goes to show what an excellent company Airasia is. My salutations go to Tony Fernandes and his impeccable team. “Mana Ada Sistem” ought to learn from this customer’s Wow experience.

Had I known the unpredictable corporate audit visit was in the proximity of my holiday timetable I would have rescheduled it. With the inevitable cancellation, I had more time to organize and prepare for the all-important event. It was pure relief when the auditors did not have a single finding on my unit. Failing an ARR audit is a death sentence, literally means you are inept and to be sent to the firing squad.

My father-in-law suffered severe travel sickness when we went up to Fraser’s Hill yesterday. In my opinion, the 31 kms of endless zigzags stretching from Teras/Tranum to Kuala Kubu Baru, is the most winding road in West Malaysia. Things could be worse had he been in the plane.

Potential Runner?












My in-laws cursed the Hill. I lead them to the Jeriau Waterfalls and to our disappointment the water was muddy due to contamination. My brave 6-year old niece, Jing Lin surprised me with her athleticism when she climbed the steep stairs after stairs all by herself and was the first to reach the end of the waterfall unaided ahead of everybody else! Perhaps I can train her to be a runner someday :)

Incidentally, my last visit here was 1979 where my deceased dad drove his 1200cc green Toyota Corolla bringing along his mother-in-law, my maternal grandma. I still remember granny grumbled, “This place is a jungle”.

Fraser’s Hill is not a good place to bring your in-laws!